Shell’s Starship challenges conventional fuel mileage conversation

June 5, 2018

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The term “fuel mileage” is very specific in its definition. It’s the number of miles traveled on a single gallon of fuel. It always has meant that, always will. But is it the most efficient measure of a heavy-duty truck’s performance? That’s the debate that Shell Rotella’s Starship Initiative takes on.

Four years ago Shell Rotella partnered with Bob Sliwa, founder and president of AirFlow Truck Co., Newington, Conn., to embark on the Starship initiative. The goal was to co-engineer a truck that redefined the conversation on the importance of measuring fuel consumption and freight transportation.

Sliwa has been reimagining conventional heavy-duty trucks since the 1980s. His first truck was modified from a 1980 Ford CL9000. At the time, he was just old enough to have a chauffeur’s license, the forerunner to today’s CDL, when he bought the truck and became an owner-operator. Even though he drove for maximum fuel economy, the best he could average was 4.4 mpg.

Relying on his tinkering and a successful drag racing background, he started improving the truck.

From racing and his research, he knew that aerodynamics, driving technique and parasitic loads affect fuel economy. Truck aerodynamics were still in their infancy in 1983, when Bob built what must be the first-ever working aerodynamic truck.

Since then, Sliwa built two more concept trucks. Always he was looking for optimum fuel mileage. However, in search of that he admittedly looked for light-weight, high-paying loads for testing.

Enter Shell Rotella in 2014 and the concept of freight-ton efficiency.

In explaining the optimum goal of moving the most amount of freight with the least amount of fuel, Bob Mainwaring, technology manager for innovation and Starship technology lead for Shell, put it like this: “Why do we use a 32,000-pound tractor-trailer to haul 4,000 pounds of ping-pong balls (cubing out of freight as opposed to grossing out)?

“The answer is because we have it. But, this is all about starting a conversation,” Mainwaring said.

To change the conversation, the Starship Initiative is essentially a “one-off” truck with every detail reimagined and re-engineered. Not necessarily with futuristic technology but rather with technology that is off-the-shelf available today or modified only slightly.

Dan Arcy, Shell Technology team leader, explained that when Shell entered into the collaborative agreement with Sliwa there had already been a considerable investment – of time – in the truck.

“Bob had invested about 8,000 hours in the development of the truck,” Arcy said. “If you start to take into account the suppliers, partners, Shell staff, that number goes a lot higher.”

That wasn’t just fabricating and building the truck. It was imagining the truck.

One of the more distinctive yet likely overlooked features is the windshield. Spanning nearly 5 feet from nose to the A pillar, the curved piece of glass is actually DOT approved.

Mainwaring said a windshield like the Starship’s can be sketched out by almost anyone.

“But who can build it?”

After managing to get the windshield produced, that led to another problem.

“One of the keep-me-up-at-night problems was developing the windshield wiper system,” Sliwa said.

It’s a combination of a million little things that come together to create the Starship. But in the end, the question is: What can it do?

Shell put the Starship to the test with a cross-country run that spanned six days in May.

On May 18, the Starship left San Diego loaded with 39,900 pounds of rock and other materials used to build artificial reefs. It had a gross weight of 73,000 total, heading for Jacksonville, Fla.

The trek culminated on May 24.

The truck faced real-world conditions of stopped traffic for a crash, 75 mph crosswinds, rain and all of the other “fun” of being a “real truck.”

Sliwa drove the trip and admitted it was stressful working to maximize fuel efficiency while fully loaded, protecting himself, the truck and those around him.

“The stress I had every single day driving down the highway. All day long there were cars coming by with cellphones out taking pictures and videos,” Sliwa said. “Truckers were the worst. There was one that slowed down in the left lane going 40-something wanting me to pass him on the right so they could take a picture or video of it.”

Running on electronic logs, most the trip averaged around 56-58 mph. However one stretch in Texas forced Sliwa to speed up to 64-65 mph just to get that scheduled portion of the trip done within his 11 hours of allotted driving time.

The final total truck and cargo weight was close to 73,000 pounds, which is 28 percent heavier than the average total gross vehicle weight of 57,000 pounds for a U.S. on-highway Class 8 truck. The payload weighed in at 39,900 pounds. That is 77 percent more mass than the U.S. average payload of 22,500 pounds. The payload was clean reef material destined for a new offshore reef installation in Florida.

For the entire journey, which included vastly different road, weather and terrain conditions, the Starship truck’s total average fuel economy was 8.94 miles per gallon.

Compare that to the average U.S. fuel economy for transport trucks at 6.4 miles per gallons. The best mileage during the drive was 10.2 miles per gallon.

But, back to the conversation that Shell is talking about, less fuel moving more freight means less carbon dioxide.

And, there is a difference in terms of carbon dioxide emissions. If all trucks in the U.S. – all 2 million of them – reached the overall fuel economy and freight ton efficiency performance of Starship, they would emit an estimated 229 million fewer tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere per year. A reduction of 229 million tons would correspond to a huge 60-percent reduction in carbon dioxide emissions from the U.S. truck fleet. That highlights an additional benefit of the enhanced economy and increased loading strategy adopted within the Starship Initiative.

“The Shell team didn’t take the easy road to trying to achieve the best results they could with their first drive with the truck,” said Mike Roeth, executive director of the North American Council for Freight Efficiency.

“They knew they wanted to make the truck run, but they went a step further. They carried a much heavier load than many average truckers on the road carry and traveled a longer route in an uncontrolled environment with a variety of technologies not tested in these real-world conditions,” Roeth said. “For us, it was a rewarding opportunity to see the truck move from an idea on paper to traveling with the team on the road to help verify the run results.”

This truck is just the beginning of what Shell intends to achieve through its co-engineering partnerships with the Starship.

“For me what is fantastic on this initiative – this truck could be on the road today,” said Carlos Maurer, president of Shell Lubricants Americas. “All of the technologies are ready. They can be commercialized in a very short period of time. We will continue to learn. We will continue to improve.

Jami Jones, Land Line managing editor, has been in journalism for more than 25 years, focused on the trucking industry since 2000. Whether judging SuperRigs or researching hard-hitting analyses, she covers trucking from lug nuts to legislation -- always with the trucker in mind.

Archives

Archives

About Us

Tandem Thoughts is where the Land Line media team shares opinions, commentary, humor, videos and candid discussion. We drop honesty bombs, we poke fun, we offer provocative analysis of news and events of interest to truckers. No topic is off-limits.